[joefun86]

I've been working on a forum that I would like to set up.

It is based around charity, I posted this up on StartUpNation too.

The idea is to have a forum dedicated to mass donations, through a small monthly donation from each user. Users will vote through the main forum for their desired charity. The catch is that each user must donate in order to vote or interact on the board. I'm thinking anywhere from 1-5 dollars per month.

If you normally donate, this is a good and convenient way to pool funds and increase the effect of your donation.

Each charity of the month will be featured for the month, with a board theme and topics devoted to that group.

Members can also use the board to discuss other ways to help, volunteer, anything.

A sample board has been put up, but I can not post links yet.

Profit would be made through google ads and the site would be kept running through a small % of donations, most likely on a scale so that as the donations increase, a smaller percent is taken for site maintenance and advertising.

[NamesCody]

I like the idea of it, but I would think the monthly subscription, regardless how small will turn people away from signing up. Maybe you could set up the forum as a pay per post forum where all of the revenue generated gets directly donated into the charity of the posters choice via a drop down menu upon registration - only have a select few, maybe 5 or so. To make sure the proper revenue is generated have it where each member has to do something that makes that money, weather it be clicking on a link or doing something for an affiliate, You could have an option for donations though, for the members who want to donate a little extra. The only problem you have with having the members click on a link or do something with an affiliate is it could lead to problems with the publishing site.

It also depends on who you are going to market to though. I would try to go for people who have been affected by different charities and the actual charities themselves, perhaps they could put the site in their newsletter or on their website or something similar.

[jasaunders]

It would be hard to have your company filed as a 401.3b such that donations would be tax deductible.

[joefun86]

I'm reading the replies and agree with them.

Another approach would be the same idea, but free, with an optional donation button and members could become sponsors, paying $5 a month to get a sponsor tag and special privileges, like the ability to vote on the charity of the month. I actually like this idea better.

Then I wouldn't have to worry about driving traffic to the site as much, generating adsense revenue (which I still might give to the charity if I clear the hosting fees).

My main idea is to use business to help others, once I'm a rich man, doing things like opening a business of some sort and using part of it to train and turn around people lives (like the homeless), give them a job, skill training and so on.


As far as marketing goes, I figure I could use MySpace & FaceBook groups at first. That and Oprah magically endorsing the site, that would be cool lol.

[mattnelson]

Ive been thinking about doing something similar in my country for a while, however i was thinking about making more than just a forum to encourage more page views and higher cpm dollars hopefully.

[rogercbryan]

As Joshua pointed out... donors will want a receipt that they can use to deduct the donation on their taxes. There are significant licensing requirements for this ability. Not just anyone can take donations no matter how well intended they are.

Here is a link to my website. At the bottom of this page are some of the requirements set forth by the IRS for fund raising. These are some pretty strict requirements.

IRS Tax Laws

[PrometheusIV]

This sounds great and all, but where are you going to get your forum members from? May I make a suggestion? Create your forum, which is simply ran on a website. Then, create a widget to interface with your forum in Facebook and in MySpace. Your widget will drive traffic to your forum, as well as give you an opportunity to describe the nature of your forum. Your application that runs within these social networks can also handle the financial transaction portion of people donating money each month, as well as handle the "membership security" portion of your forum... that way only members that are "validated" through your application are allowed to log into your forum. This will eliminate outside "garbage" traffic from getting into your forum and posting garbage within your forum... Only paying members that interface with your social network "widgets" will be allowed to log into your forum.

Contact me through Skype if you are looking for a process designer for this endeavor. (prometheusinternetvisions)